[IMC-US] editorial guidelines that have been agreed upon

[bht]

hey folks.  so, a common question posed is what sort of editorial 
guidelines have been agreed upon and how do features get promoted to the 
center column (process wise, not technically).  i have been shirking 
this question by saying that there is no policy or guideline.  i have 
been doing this in the hope that perhaps someone would find that 
alarming and initiate some sort of change with that.

hasnt happened.

so, i will run down the editorial guidelines that exist.  please do not 
take the fact that some guidelines exist to mean that the editorial 
guidelines discussion is no longer one that should happen.

here are some points from the listerve archives, which anyone can read 
up on and should to understand the complexities of us imc:

Q.  What would be the criteria for the center column?
A.  I think the criteria could be as simple as any article from the featurewire
that is relevant to the audience of the US-IMC.  

the editorial policy exists on the us.indy site here:  http://indymedia.us/en/static/editorial.shtml
this appears to have been proposed and accepted in august.  

however, after the rnc and and getting the site to actually work, the elections came.  the elections were the launch of the
site.  this launch also meant the first time we as editors would be using the functions of the site and that people other than
us would be visiting the site :-)

so, shortly after that, the editorial process that we would actually use (the proposed one is a mock of michigan imc's with some
changes, however, the michigan imc ed policy is a very common one amongst imcs...meaning it is a good way to get through new-imc
process) so, we started talking of a process that would actually be used.  Here is the beginning and end of the conversation:
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000683.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000685.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000686.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000689.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000690.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000691.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000692.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000693.html
http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/2004-November/000694.html

and since then, the ed. policy that is actually used has been up in the air.  we have been running on the free-wheeling process
that tribal describes in one of the above messages.  anyway, since then, there have been articles just promoted, some articles 
proposed, some people posting ideas and all other things that lead to discontinuity.  

and i think that discontinuity shows!  i think it would be great to try to define our guidelines for dealing with the us imc site.
there are syndicated features which the guideline is relatively clear and relatively works.
there are us imc created features which have no process.
and there are op wire features which have limited process.

here is the archives for imc-us:  http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us/
here they are for editorial:  http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-us-editorial/
there are alot of cross posts.

there are quite a few folks that have requested admin access, and there are quite a few ideas of how to use that admin access,
and questions about it.  the more folks start to interpret things based on what they want it to be (without talking about that)
the quicker things will get out of control and we will have absolutely no focus.  

if folks dont think this is important, saying that would help.  because there are many people that exist on these lists
that i would love to hear from regardless of what you ahve to say.  we can spend some time working on these things and 
have clear proposals, processes, and guidelines, or we can stumble along as we have been.

word.
bht
portland imc volunteer